Due to technical difficulties, the first few minutes of audio were lost. I’ve posted Pastor Renee’s notes for the missing portion.

BUSYNESS/DISTRACTIONS

We live in a world where multi-tasking is the norm, where fast isn’t fast enough, and where we are constantly bombarded with the noise of the world: TV, Work, Cell phones, kids, pets, e-mails (the average office worker gets 220 per day), the endless to-do list. Heck, we even see advertising on bathroom doors and gas pumps now. Sometimes, we feel like the commercial: Calgon, Take Me Away!

ILLUS: Busyness

In data collected from over 20,000 Christians in 139 countries (though mostly in America) and between the ages of 15 and 88, The Obstacles to Growth Survey found that, on average, more than 4 in 10 Christians around the world say they “often” or “always” rush from task to task. About 6 in 10 Christians say that it’s “often” or “always” true that “the busyness of life gets in the way of developing my relationship with God.” Christians most likely to agree were from North America, Africa, and Europe.

While busyness afflicts both men and women, the distraction from God was more likely to affect men than women in every surveyed continent except North America, where 62 percent of women and 61 percent of men reported busyness as interfering with their relationship with God.

By profession, pastors were most likely to say they rush from task to task (54 percent), which adversely affects their relationship with God (65 percent).

“It’s tragic and ironic: the very people who could best help us escape the bondage of busyness are themselves in chains,” said Dr. Michael Zigarelli, who conducted the study at the Charleston Southern University School of Business.

We get desensitized to the noise ILLUS: Trains and traffic at my grandparent’s house. They didn’t even realize how loud it was. Someone else had to point it out to them.

Have you ever been somewhere when they turned off the fluorescent lights and realized just how noisy the lights are. We get desensitized to the noise. That’s why we need to be intentional about scheduling time with God and removing all the background noise we can when we do that.

We need TO MAKE TIME WITH GOD A PRIORITY “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)